It's been a strange couple of days.  It began with a mistake.  I let myself get sucked into a gun control debate on www.kcstar.com.  The site contains as pathetic a nest of vipers as I've ever seen.  Having been there only a few days, I didn't appreciate the numbers of trolls.  The conversation was sparked by the shooting at Dekalb University near Chicago.  Naturally, several of the loons took it as an opportunity to boast that, had concealed carry laws been in place, the shooter would never dared have shown his face.  Never mind that he was mentally ill and, therefore, not rational.  It proceeded from there to declarations that armed citizens were the only answer to these kinds of shootings.  Followed by the boast that they, themselves, would have taken that dude out pronto, you betcha.

I had the temerity to point out that even professionals -- police, federal agents, soldiers, etc. -- regularly miss when discharging their firearms in stressful life-and-death situations.  Worse, they sometimes misinterpret things and shoot innocent people.  I provided pieces of news articles and links to complete articles.  One of the stories involved a Jamaican immigrant in New York named Amadou Diallo.  Four policemen stopped him.  But he didn't speak English.  He reached for his wallet.  Police thought he was reaching for a gun.  Almost fifty shots were fired, killing Diallo.  Half those shots went into walls and doors.

Another story involved police again.  This time a group of them shot a man from Trinidad who, when ordered to turn around, had a hairbrush in his hand.  Over twenty shots were fired.  Half of them went into the walls.  Yet a third story involved a black man coming out of a bar after his bachelor party the night before his wedding.  This one's still under investigation, but the suspect was unarmed.  Police fired over 50 shots, killing the suspect, wounding two bystanders, and striking houses and shattering windows nearby.

And this was where the past days went weird.  I also mentioned my own personal experience.  In '69, I got caught in a crossfire between a group of police and FBI agents in the parking lot of a place called Harold's Restaurant and Lounge.  One police officer died.  Both criminal suspects were wounded.  One of them was on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list.  I wound up giving deposition testimony in the case.  So did the  high school friend who was with me.  Because of our ages, they didn't want to put us on the stand at trial.

Well, one of the trolls attempted to google my story.  All they could turn up was a PITCH MAGAZINE restaurant review by that well-known historian, Charles Ferruzza.  And it was a review for the HI-WAY, which is the business now in place where Harold's used to be.  Unable to find anything substantiating my story, this person declared me a liar.

Now, having lost some memory during my cancer chemotherapy, I took this rather weirdly.  I decided to begin googling myself.  And found next to nothing.  Granted, it was 38 years ago, and I didn't have specific dates, nor even complete names.  I knew the FBI suspect was "Ray something."  Or "something Ray."  I knew the police officer who was shot was "something Whitsett."  Beyond that, I didn't remember much.

I happened to pass the HI-WAY yesterday and, on a whim, went inside.  In an astounding bit of coincidence, the wife of the original owner was also inside eating a bowl of chili.  She was astounded that anyone remembered the shooting.  She didn't have many more details than I had, but remembered that TRUE DETECTIVE had done a three or four page story on it.  Great.  Off to Google again.  Try finding a 1969-70 issue of that lurid magazine!  But it was fun to talk to her.

Later that night, her son called me.  Her son and I graduated together, and we had a good chat about a lot of stuff, including the shooting.  I hadn't seen the son since high school.  He promised to dig a little and called back later with an approximate date, but not a specific one.  And his mother called me again today.  She'd spent her evening digging through her old scrapbooks to see if she had anything.  She had thought she had a newspaper clipping, but she couldn't turn it up.  But she put me in touch with yet another old high school friend.  I didn't recall much, either, but again, it was good to catch up.

Today, I've googled FBI Most Wanted lists, spoken with a contact at the KC Star only to learn that their archives only go back to 1989, spoken with the duty officer of the KC branch of the FBI only to be told to call back tomorrow to speak with a specific person, but suggesting I'd need further information.  Even Diana got in on the fun tonight, googling up a "memorial page" for slain Kansas City police officers.  The weird part there was that we couldn't turn up any "Whitsett," although both the mother and the son agreed that was the right last name.

In short, I became obsessed with re-discovering the facts of this story.  Googling won't do it.  And memory, alone, is obviously a tricky thing.  Tomorrow, I talk to the FBI duty officer.  I'll contact the North Kansas City Historical Society.  I may try to paw my way through the micro-film at the KC library.

And I used to think that SFWA was fun.   


Best,
     Robin